Streamate advice, issues since updating equipment

[platinumbarbie]

Hi everyone,

I was hoping I could get some advice

Ive been on streamate on and off for over a year. I have fibre optic and my laptop was new but not fantastic (a cheap asus model) I had always used the microsoft HD lifecam so again ok but by no means great. My "streaming quality" however had always been from 'average' to 'excellent'

Well last week my laptop died. I know nothing about computers but spent ages researching and decided to buy a better laptop, ironically so I would hopefully get better streaming and higher placement. At the same time I spent £200 on buying myself the logitech bc950 so I would have the remote and not need to keep adjusting my cam for and in shows.

I was on a budget for laptop as am mid moving house but ended up getting a dell lattitude e6410 which is a professional laptop with good reviews.

These are the stats of my laptop;

Intel core i7
M640 @ 2.80GHz 2.80GHz

RAM 8.00GB (7.80 useable)

Now my laptop arrived today and until then I had been using an old intel pentium desktop with next to no RAM and still been getting ok results...

Imagine my dissappointment when I plug in my new laptop, fibre broadband directlly plugged to laptop, and new conference cam, go to stream... everything is lagging and my 'rankings' for bitrate, roundtrip etc have all gone to below average...worth adding I tried both with and without encoder and no difference if anything was worse without.

I dont understand! everything streamate says to IMPROVE things, a good computer, great cam and .................!!

I have no idea what could be causing this but it is effectin my earnings so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you xx

 

[emma_skye12]

Did you go to the Streamate "Help" page?

If you go down to the "Question About Equipment And Streaming", that can help you out a lot!

Edit: It can tell you what settings you need to/should have. That's what helped me with my streaming.

 

[BiancaBaker]

Okay so there are a few things that have helped me fix my issues (which sound like issues you are having). After my MAC got re-set I was having terrible issues like you. The first thing I did was I bought an ethernet cable for my MAC so I can be hard wired in. Are you using wireless internet or are you hard wired? if you are not hard wired into your modem, I would 100% suggest this as the first thing. Second your specs sound fine (for the computer) If you are using the encoder, Your encoder settings may not be correct. I had to fix my settings and once I did everything got fixed. I don't know what settings you are currently using but if you want to shoot me a PM on what your encoder settings are I can take a look @ them - they may need to be tweaked; Especially with a new camera/computer- this would mess with ALL your SM rankings stuff.

 

[platinumbarbie]

Thanks girls

I am using all the recommended settings from streamate. My internet is hardwired in and even the with encoder, I just downloaded streamates recommended settings for it. As I said even when I attempted to stream without the encoder everything was worse still!

My internet connection is clearly the same and my laptop is actually better than before, do you think it could be linked to the logitech bc950 cam? But I am thinking with a decent computer and fibre broadband however I should have no issues handling the cam...

I have emailed streamate for advice, I hope they can help as my placement went right down and I had practically noone in my room

 

[Sevrin]

Have you tried testing your speed somewhere other than on Streamate?

http://www.speedtest.net/ allows you to check your speed to various locations.

 

[platinumbarbie]

My upload speed is 9.53 Mbps, this should be more than fine yes? :dontknow: Im so confused right now I just spent all this money updating my equipment, trying to improve my placement as thinking of taking my camming more serious and I dont have any idea whats happening with my sm I was half way up front page before and tonight like 2 people in my room! x

 

[emma_skye12]

Hopefully they'll email you back! But it probably won't be till Monday. I don't think their customer support works during the weekend.

But, to be honest, they're probably going to just give you the settings and not actual advice that could help you. They did that to me before.

Still, I hope they help you and good luck! :thumbleft:

 

[BiancaBaker]

Thanks girls

I am using all the recommended settings from streamate. My internet is hardwired in and even the with encoder, I just downloaded streamates recommended settings for it. As I said even when I attempted to stream without the encoder everything was worse still!

My internet connection is clearly the same and my laptop is actually better than before, do you think it could be linked to the logitech bc950 cam? But I am thinking with a decent computer and fibre broadband however I should have no issues handling the cam...

I have emailed streamate for advice, I hope they can help as my placement went right down and I had practically noone in my room

There recommended settings for the Encoder DIDNT help me, I had to mess with them and then it fixed itself. I have a brand new logitech too so that could be the issue. Since you are working with the recommended settings and they didnt fix my issue it deff sounds like the same issue I had.

This is what I put in and it fixed my issue- hope it helps u!

Input size: 704 x 576
Bit Rate : 1200 Kbps and then next to that I had to put 864 x 480 (not what they recommended but now I am 2nd row again!)

 

[platinumbarbie]

thank you hun will give it a try tomorrow and keep my fingers crossed x

 

[nzhere]

RAM 8.00GB (7.80 useable)

This might indicate only roughly 256 MB of memory are being allocated to the onboard video of the laptop. See if you can allocate more ram resources to the onboard video. The manual should says something about it?

 

[JerryBoBerry]

RAM 8.00GB (7.80 useable)

This might indicate only roughly 256 MB of memory are being allocated to the onboard video of the laptop. See if you can allocate more ram resources to the onboard video. The manual should says something about it?

Sadly the Latitude E6440 has a discrete video card (NVIDIA Quadro NVS 3100M, same as a GeForce 310M video card) that comes with 512mb ram on it. There is no way to increase it, even through bios settings that I'm aware of.
This is an entry level video card since the laptop is rated as business class. But it should handle HD video without a problem. More modern graphic intensive games would not be good on this one however.


To the OP:
Since you just bought this I'm guessing you got it used or refurbished. Have you made sure the latest drivers are installed for the onboard video, and everything else too really. Bios, audio, video...never hurts to have everything up to date.

Dell has put out a new nvidia driver update on January 22nd of this year.
latitude e6410 drivers

There's a 'system analysis' button on that page that hopefully should recognize any driver updates specifically needed on your laptop.

Don't know if this will help with your situation, but making sure the latest drivers are installed is usually the first thing I check.

 

[JickyJuly]

If you also updated to the encoder version 3.2 going back to the 3.1 might help.